Jayhova, having the locations represented by the circular dots instead of the current pixels/squares might be looking good. These squares are a relic of 320 x 200 resolution limits indeed.
Not sure about variable size of the dots - that would need some testing, to see how it really works ingame. But all the ideas you stated sound good and realistic to me, Id like to see it!
Crystal, I was thinking about making the regional maps more detailed - but than you see the map ingame actually covered with 100s of locations... like this..
- hmm.jpg (291.14 KiB) Viewed 4578 times
...and Ive realized these simple maps are actually good - its clean/clear and you can somehow see what is going on there. But maybe Im wrong and they can be made better. I will gladly offer all the map files to anyone who wants to try something better with it.